de facto gun registration "rule" in the works

[Metric]

Different from the prior rule regarding "for profit" sales.

https://nypost.com/2024/01/31/news/...-to-all-but-bar-private-sales-whistleblowers/

Empower Oversight “has learned through whistleblowers within ATF that at the direction of the White House, ATF has drafted a 1,300-page document to justify a rule effectively banning the private sale of firearms,” Leavitt wrote.

The point is no longer to add paperwork and hassle. The point, of course, is to have every single "new" gun (purchased post-rule) legally traceable to every single owner at any given time, without exception.

Mostly likely it will come with a promise that the feds "won't do anything bad with the information," since the implications are so obvious.

Will be challenged in the courts, but only after someone has "standing" -- i.e. after it's in force and people are getting burned by it.

 

[Recycled bullet]

So sorry I don't have anything besides questions...

Will all the alphabet soup agencies be charged with protecting and preventing the information from being sold to some Band of Thieves?

Crime etc.. home invasions are and have been on the rise.

Does the people in our government only want to dox everybody who owns guns?

Why else would the people engineer and enforce edicts and doctrine that only affects those actually interested in following the law?

 

[Metric]

I'm less worried about leaks, and more worried about confiscation, which is always the final goal of registration.

If you bought a gun post-rule, and it's illegal to make a private sale, then there's a paper trail leading directly to every final owner.

Confiscation won't happen the day after the law passes, but when conditions are right, it will play out the way registration always plays out.

 

[44 AMP]

according to the "whistleblowers" there is a draft 1300 page document to "justify" the new rule (which we have not yet seen the exact language of)

Many things are being bandied about, and we're not yet exactly sure what will be in the final proposed rule.

One thing mentioned was that anyone who (ever) sold a gun for as profit be classed as a firearms dealer and requiring an FFL or be in violation of Federal law.

Also we don't know if they will be content with going from the date of the rule enactment (assuming it does get enacted) or if they will consider retroactive criminality ala the Hughes amendment's retroactive prohibition example.

I'd really be upset if they decided to prosecute me for being an unlicensed firearms dealer because I made a $30 profit on a gun I sold in 1974....

Unlikely? at this time, sure. Possible in the future if this kind of thing goes unchecked? I won't say it can't happen.

 

[Metric]

Also we don't know if they will be content with going from the date of the rule enactment (assuming it does get enacted) or if they will consider retroactive criminality ala the Hughes amendment's retroactive prohibition example.

It would be bad and a hassle if they made it retroactive. But, if you purchased the gun prior to the rule change, there can be no assumption that you must legally therefore still posses it, or that a paper trail to the final owner exists (or ever existed).

Thus, it would make the scenario of someone showing up at houses with a list of serial numbers and a bunch of extreme demands impossible to enforce, if those guns were purchased prior to the rule change.

I am wondering if this logic generates another crazy run on guns later this year -- presumably long before November.

 

[Recycled bullet]

Yes I can see it as pre-planning for selective enforcement of the law.

 

[5whiskey]

Also we don't know if they will be content with going from the date of the rule enactment (assuming it does get enacted) or if they will consider retroactive criminality ala the Hughes amendment's retroactive prohibition example.

I'd really be upset if they decided to prosecute me for being an unlicensed firearms dealer because I made a $30 profit on a gun I sold in 1974....

Unlikely? at this time, sure. Possible in the future if this kind of thing goes unchecked? I won't say it can't happen.

I think any retroactive enforcement would clearly violate the prohibition of ex post facto laws in Article I Section 9 of the Constitution. The Hughes amendment did not run afoul of this as its slightly apples/oranges. You weren't prosecuted for any specific act you committed prior, you were just prosecuted for possessing a firearm AFTER Hughes if you had a previous conviction. Hughes is more of a status offender offense.

I don't see this going anywhere personally. The pistol brace ban is likely to be a bust, and pistol braces have only been a thing for the past few years (even if they are obviously in wide spread use)... private sales have been a thing... well for a very long time.

 

[44 AMP]

Thus, it would make the scenario of someone showing up at houses with a list of serial numbers and a bunch of extreme demands impossible to enforce, if those guns were purchased prior to the rule change.

I'm not so certain anything is "impossible" when they get to make up the rules as they see fit. "Impossible to enforce" and "impossible to convict" are different matters.

They could well show up at your door with a list of serial #s and extreme demands and accusations (and hopefully not a no knock swat raid at zero dark thirty) and if they are "gentle" enough to take you alive, arrest you, seize your firearms (and possibly other assets) possibly destroy your house or gun safe "searching" for evidence, and haul you off.

You might (and probably would) be found innocent, but that's in court, possibly months down the road, perhaps even longer, meanwhile your life is trashed, and you are possibly having to spend your life savings to defend yourself, and you won't get that back, ever.

If this were the 80s, I'd be worried about an FBI sniper shooting my unarmed wife, or having my house burned down.

While these might sound like rediculous extremes (and, they are) things like that HAVE HAPPENED before and could happen again.

Remember they don't have to get convictions, they might not even care about getting a conviction, and the press might even commend them for getting "yet another evil blackmarket arms dealer" off the streets....

 

[Metric]

I understand the generalized concern over a "cultural revolution" scenario, involving indiscriminate door-to-door intrusion from the Red Guards. It's way too common in human history. And, while many of us were diverted over "grave threats" like Saddam Hussein for a number of decades, a long march through the institutions was taking place, and there now exist parts of the country that are fully prepped for the glorious revolution (e.g. places inclined to look fondly on CHAZ and CHOP, regardless of body count).

That's an unstable situation that will not end well. I don't know how it plays out, but there is no universe in which it's pretty. I expect we'll get another "preview of coming attractions" later this year.

But, the country is not homogeneous. EXTREMELY not homogeneous. The Red Guard strategy is somewhat less intimidating in areas with 70% gun ownership rates and life-sized cardboard cutouts of Kyle Rittenhouse waving with a smile.

What do you need to get those areas? You need legitimacy. You have to be able to take people to court and win. And for that, it's not good enough to compile a list of a couple hundred million serial numbers, and names of people who owned them for "at least one day" at some point in the last 30 years.

That information exists, though hopefully not in a centralized federal database. But, changes to the law could make it accessible, in theory. It's important that such information is "not good enough," even if they have it. Knowledge that you were the owner on October 3, 2011 doesn't imply you're the owner now.

What they actually need (and desperately lust for) is a list of known current owners. That's what registration is all about. The comrades show up with a list, and the listee had better produce serial number XYZ123, for which he is known to be the current owner.